


User

by arrow (esteefee)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: April Showers Challenge, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-06
Updated: 2007-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is a little down on himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	User

I'm using him, and the kid just doesn't see it. Sandburg _can't_ see it, because if he did, he'd have to admit to himself that he's letting me. That he's that obsessed with his Sentinel.

The funny thing is, he thinks he's using _me_. Oh, I let him do his tests, let him hang out with me, live with me. Hell, I pay for the odd vegetarian pizza or Jags ticket. So he thinks he's floating the gravy train. On his way to that brass ring.

When, in actuality, I'm the cold son of a bitch who's using _him_. Not just for dealing with the senses—and God knows I need him for those, for every new twist they throw me—but also on the job. Jesus, he's working, _unpaid_ , as a quasi-cop in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, and he thinks he's getting away with something.

I'm using him every time he doesn't stay in the truck. And he never does, and I count on that. I count on him every time I pull my gun and he pulls some crazy trick. He doesn't even blink when I put his life at risk. Christ—I even put him undercover.

And he might seem a little nervous, might bounce around a little, but he always does what I ask. Always. Follows me in, follows me down, follows me over the line. And he always acts so goddamned grateful at the end, even when he's getting the stitches put in.

God help me if he ever figures it out. And he will, someday. Someday, hopefully a long time from now, he'll wake up and realize I'm the bastard who's been using him all along—to prove to my father I'm not a loser, to prove it wasn't a mistake that I survived when all my men died.

That's what all this is for. At first I wondered if I'd been left alive as a just form of punishment for being a dupe, for letting them die. I thought I'd go insane from the guilt and regret. The only peace I found was being a cop, throwing myself in the line of fire—trying to make good on that debt, even though I never can.

Without Sandburg, there'd be no more opportunities for redemption. I'd be sitting in the nut house, drugged to the gills and staring at the pretty fingerpaintings. Broken, useless, my debt unpaid.

Without Sandburg...I can't think of being without him. And that's another way I use him, because he made his way in somehow, and I don't want to shake him loose, even though it's the right thing to do. I like it too much—having him close.

I think about having him closer.

I love him, selfish prick that I am. And, fortunately for me, he's obsessed with his Sentinel. He's finally got one of his very own, and is completely oblivious to anything but that. A childhood dream made real, his luck by Grace making him blind.

Grace of God, or the Devil. Maybe they're together on this. The one testing Sandburg's faith, and the other seducing me to sin.

Blair's faith. My sin.

....................  
2007.10.06


End file.
